


What If I Taught You a Few Things

by thatsprivatebro



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Boarding School, M/M, Private School, and skiing, louis/harry if you squint, mostly preslash?, there's piano playing, what more do you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 03:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsprivatebro/pseuds/thatsprivatebro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU—Harry and Louis go a fancy schmancy private school…Harry is new. Louis spends a lot of time at the piano. (wow apparently i suck at summaries too, who knew…)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t know if this is necessary, since I clearly own nothing and get my kicks writing fanfiction but it seems to be the thing to do…

Harry didn’t hate many things. At best he’d find something incredibly irritating to him personally—he was able to see the value that others could perhaps place in it. But there was one thing that he did hate with an absolute passion, and even in his young age he was sure he’d never stop hating it: moving. That is, relocating; attempting to entirely shift one’s entire life from one place to another, with rarely any success. 

Harry had moved six times in his short life, always to a different city. He only vaguely knew the reason—he’d stopped asking soon after the second move—knowing why they were moving wouldn’t change the fact that they were.  
And Harry could deal with it for the most part. He’d gotten used to changing his address and saying goodbye to friends and somehow always losing one thing or another in the void that is the moving van.

But the one thing that Harry couldn’t stand was switching schools. That awkward position of being a ‘new kid’ in the middle of term, of being stared at and wandering hallways lost beyond all hope without even having the excuse of being a proper first year. Not knowing which clubs to join or where to eat lunch or who to avoid—it could all be too much. And sure, eventually Harry would find his niche he knew, but the interim period of weeks before that happened filled him with absolute dread.  
It was about a week into this dreaded interim period and Harry was still spending lunch wandering the vast halls and wings of the school which he hadn’t yet seen, which incidentally were quite a few since this was one of the bigger schools he’d attended.

He was just about to turn a corner when suddenly he heard what sounded like jingle bells wafting from a door across the hall that was slightly ajar. Harry had never really been musically talented himself and it astounded him that someone could make any possible sense of the music sheets which to him looked like ink splatter.  
Not wanting to disturb whoever was playing Harry leaned towards the crack in the door, closing one eye to get a proper view.  
He was surprised to find it was another student, though by the looks of him he wasn’t a second year like Harry, maybe a third or fourth year—it was difficult to tell without seeing the crest on his lapel. His long fingers moved easily over the keys even with his eyes closed—he had moved on from Jingle Bells to Let It Snow with ease and Harry was rather enjoying watching him like this, and maybe not entirely for the music.  
He was so involved in listening that he didn’t notice the boy looking right at him through the crack in the door until it was too late—he’d been caught.  
Harry froze on the spot. It wasn’t as if running would have helped and besides, he hadn’t done anything wrong in his mind, not that he felt any less like a deer in the headlights.

“Were you listening to me? You know these rooms are soundproofed for a reason.”

The pianist had thrown the door open as he filled the frame, arms crossed over his chest and hip jutting to one side.  
But it was the slightly high pitched voice that broke Harry from his stupor, even if the glaring blue eyes threatened to put him right back into it.

“They’re…they’re only soundproof if you shut the door.”

Harry was sure this had been the wrong thing to say and was surprised to hear a genuine laugh come from the other boy, who Harry now noticed had his trousers rolled up to his calf, with sparkling white vans instead of loafers.

“Cheeky, I like it. But really—why are you here?”

“I…I’m new. I mean, I was just sort of walking around and heard…well, you I guess. I didn’t know we had a music room.”  
The shorter boy rolled his eyes, though Harry could tell it wasn’t in his direction.

“Yeah, we have three swimming pools in this place of course they think we need a whole wing of sound-proofed rooms. What’s your name, anyway? “  
“I’m Harry…did you say three swimming pools?”  
A quick nod was the only answer to Harry’s question, “Harold, huh? My name’s Louis. Do you play?”  
Louis motioned toward the large grand piano in the room and moved so quickly that Harry made no attempt to correct him on his name.

“Um…no, I mean my mum put me in lessons when I was really young but it never stuck. I can’t play as—“ He didn’t want to finish his thought but Louis already inclined an ear towards him, even more curious due to his awkward pause and Harry could feel the blush creeping up his cheeks as the truth slipped from his lips, not being nearly clever enough to quickly come up with an alternate phrase, “I can’t play as well as you…”  
In staring at his feet Harry couldn’t see that Louis was now beaming, but he did feel the friendly clap on his shoulder as he was dragged inside the music room.

“Well then, what if I taught you a few things? You’re new anyway, right? Sit here,”  
Louis began to ramble about sheet music and tutorials as Harry obeyed his commands feeling as though he didn’t have a choice.  
And yet as they sat together on the piano bench, Louis teaching Harry the names of various keys by sight and their knees almost touching Harry couldn’t help but think that if his interim period included many lessons like this, perhaps it wouldn’t be as bad as he’d thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: ok, in writing this I realized I really suck at banter so…I’m sorry haha I tried. Beta’d again by my lovely other half.There will probably be one more chapter to this…

A few weeks had passed and though Harry was glad to have Louis to talk to he was excited when some students from his own class began to talk to him and even asked him to join their photography club when they found out he had an interest. He was sure Louis wouldn’t mind—he was an upper classman after all and surely had better things to do than try and teach Harry a few Christmas carols on piano.

“Photography? Fancy being a paparazzo then, mate?”  
Louis was staring up at the boy (who was even taller than usual as he was standing rather than sitting at the piano bench) and punctuated his sentence with a few jaunty notes.  
Harry shifted but took the joke in stride, smiling, “Not if I can help it—I’m more interested in landscapes, anyway…but, I’m running late. We’ll still meet at lunch, yeah? I’ve almost got ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ down I can feel it!”  
He waited for a nod from Louis before running out the door, shutting it too forcefully behind him in his haste. Louis stared at the door a moment before slamming down on the keys and readying himself for the long walk home in the dreary gray weather.

It’s not that Louis was jealous. Harry didn’t belong to him, even if he had taken him under his wing a bit, albeit not entirely selflessly—the prospect of someone new who had no preconceptions of him was attractive at the time. And Louis wasn’t a stalker—it’s not as though he didn’t want Harry to have other friends. And things had been fine for the first week or so—Harry would still meet Louis for lunch in their usual piano room and go off to his photography club after school to do…well, Louis wasn’t quite sure what they did but he was sure it was vaguely related to the topic of its name.

But this was the third time that week that Harry had missed their usual lunch lesson in the music room, and Louis knew how this would end if he didn’t do something. So he’d resolved himself to find Harry to see just what it was that was entertaining him more than Louis.

The sheer size of the campus meant it took Louis nearly his entire lunch period to find the curly-haired boy but he’d managed to locate him—with a small group of other boys he could only assume were members of this cursed club—in a covered balcony facing the snow-covered courtyard in front of the school.  
When Harry didn’t notice him right away Louis demanded his attention, as per usual.

“Hey, mate, is this where you’ve been running off to?”

It wasn’t just Harry who took notice—the entire group turned around and Louis groaned internally when he realized that he knew most of them—and most of them knew him.

“Mate? Don’t tell us you’ve been hanging around this tosser—you know he crashed graduation last term dressed as Margaret Thatcher? I’m still not sure how he wasn’t expelled.”

“Hey, you’re only mad because I was still better looking than you.” He winked in Harry’s direction, but he was too busy looking at his own feet to notice. 

“Aw come on, Harold, you almost had Jingle Bell Rock, remember?”  
Louis had said it quietly, but the other boys still broke into haughty chuckles.

“Wait—you were taking piano lessons from him? All he knows are Christmas carols; he couldn’t buy his way into the school symphony, not even with that music hall his parents had built!”

At this a chorus of laughter began, but Louis just rolled his eyes, set to grab Harry from this group of obvious idiots until he noticed a smirk creep across Harry’s face as he set to defend himself.

“Yeah, well…I mean I had nothing better to do, and you should have seen his face…”

Louis’ heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. All those afternoons practicing and chatting, drinking tea and having conversations and Louis even taking the blame after Harry spilled some on the keys. He had thought this time it would be different, that Harry would be different. But he was just like everyone else in that idiotic, overrated and overpriced school.  
He was angry, seething with rage, but he swallowed it and crossed his arms over his chest as he cleared his throat dramatically, pleased with his plan for revenge.

“So Harry—did they give you a guy’s uniform because they thought the girls would get too jealous of their new pretty classmate? Or was it the extra nipples that’d scare them off?”

Harry’s face whirled toward Louis, rage in his eyes and an embarrassed flush beginning to creep up into his face as his new posse stopped chortling to question him.

“Harry, what the hell is he talking about?”

“How should I know,” Harry practically spat the words out as he continued to look straight into Louis’ eyes, “he’s just a useless, idiotic arsehole.”

And with that he turned back to the group, who clapped him on the back in an almost sickeningly approving fashion.

“Didn’t we tell you, mate? Now piss off, Tomlinson.”

Louis, still reeling inwardly, gave a mock salute and quickly turned around, walking as coolly as he could out of the balcony.  
Only when he was surely out of sight did he allow himself to quickly wipe the tears which were threatening to fall from his eyes, his hands clenched into angry fists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, please let me know what you think, either here or on my tumblr thatsprivatebro :)


	3. Chapter 3

Harry could feel guilt tugging at his conscience for talking to Louis like that. But what else could he have done? Louis was his friend, sure, but he was a sixth year, he’d be leaving after the next term and then Harry would be alone again. It was strategy, social strategy. 

This didn’t make Harry feel better.  
He would apologise later—it wasn’t as if he didn’t know where to find Louis. He only hoped that Louis would understand.   
But Harry never got his chance—it didn’t matter where he looked or when, he never managed to run into Louis. Sure, the school was huge beyond reason, but Harry still couldn’t help but think Louis was somehow avoiding him purposefully. Harry even hid in a music room adjacent to the one he and Louis used to use, waiting to hear the gentle sounds of Christmas carols and the odd chorus to a top 40 pop song or two. After an hour of hearing nothing he left, begrudgingly accepting the fact that he had screwed up the one real friendship he could have had and that he probably wouldn’t see Louis for the remainder of his time there.  
Weeks passed and Harry had managed to put Louis in the back of his mind. He’d kept himself busy, and even managed to make a decent reputation for himself so that he was very much looking forward to the school’s annual winter ski trip. This year the destination was Switzerland, and Harry couldn’t wait for the long drunken nights and early miserable mornings that seemed to characterize all such trips.  
Harry was only half right: the nights were indeed wild in the way that only secondary- school parties can be but no part of the trip was miserable, not even the early hung-over mornings.   
It was on the third such morning that Harry was suddenly prodded on the shoulder by one of his mates,  
“Hey, Styles, check out the spastic.”  
Harry looked up in the direction his friend was pointing to see a small, somewhat dim figure at the top of a slope that he still managed to recognize as Louis. He also recognized the slope as one of the most advanced in the resort with warning signs all but littering the surrounding area.  
“What the hell is he doing?”  
Harry had muttered this to himself, but received a response anyway,  
“Being an idiot as usual. Come on, let’s go before we’re responsible for calling 999, or whatever it is in Switzerland.”  
Though Harry could see his friends leaving out of the corner of his eye he kept his sights on Louis, running through past conversations in his head to try and remember if Louis had ever mentioned being an Olympic-class skier before. Harry couldn’t remember any.

Louis could see Harry’s distinctive, and rather ridiculous, green Loch Ness monster beanie from the top of the slope and smirked—he may not have had the amount of eyes on him that he usually did but he had the only two that mattered fixed on him. Harry would have to at least start up a conversation after this, and maybe Louis could use the opportunity to convince Harry that he wasn’t a complete wanker despite what all of their peers seemed to think.   
He took a deep breath and tried to focus. What none of his less-than-interested classmates knew was that he was actually a highly experienced skier, not an expert, but you couldn’t go on yearly Christmas holidays to your family’s second home in Aspen without picking up a few things.   
He could feel the cold wind on his face and the adrenaline begin to rush through his body as he came to the first jump, a smile etching its way across his face despite himself. He chanced a glance back to the bottom of the slope, hoping to see a vaguely Harry-shaped figure still looking up at him.  
He couldn’t spot him, and Louis too instinctively craned his neck to look further, causing him to lose his balance. In his panic he shifted his weight forward, reflexively throwing out his arms to catch himself until he heard a sickening crunch.

Harry had heard what happened as it went through the grapevine, and was worried until he’d worked out that Louis had only broken an arm and gotten banned from the school’s upcoming spring holiday. He’d tried to find Louis after the trip to ask him why he would do something so idiotic, but he hadn’t managed it.   
It had been about a week, and he was taking a walk by himself throughout the many corridors when he heard a frankly awful screeching noise which brought him out of his thoughts. As he looked around to try and figure out the source of the noise Harry realized he was a very familiar and still largely empty music hall. Working off of what could certainly be considered more than a hunch he followed racket until he found the same door that he’d found weeks ago, in its usual slightly ajar position.   
Gently pushing the door Harry was confronted with the image of Louis leaning closely over the keys of the piano, focused intensely as he tried to will the cast-encased fingers of his right hand to cooperate and press only the key they were meant to. After clumsily failing once again he banged his fists on the piano, wincing with both frustration and the pain that throbbed through his arm. 

Louis started when he felt someone slide onto the piano bench next to him, his eyes widening when he saw that it was Harry. He wanted to be angry at having been snubbed for weeks on end or to at least feign indifference with a catty remark but he found that his mind had stopped working as soon as he set eyes on the curly-haired almost yeti-like presence.   
Harry only gave a fleeting glance to Louis’ cast and rather coyly did a quick and flawless warm-up exercise before tenderly grasping Louis’ injured hand.  
“I’m no good at music either,” Harry matched Louis’ gaze, gauging his reaction as he realized his ice breaker had come off as more of an insult, but Louis just stared intently back, only relief filling his azure eyes so Harry continued.  
“I mean…I wasn’t, until recently. But…what if I taught you a few things?”  
Louis found himself suddenly speechless as he tried to force an uncharacteristic blush away from his cheeks but he just nodded, letting Harry lean over him to grab both of his hands in his own somehow larger ones and he knew then that he had been right, Harry was different than anyone else he had ever known, even if it did take some time for Harry himself to realize it.   
And so they spent the rest of the afternoon that way, ignoring class bells and the frantic footfalls of classmates rushing from room to room. None of it seemed to matter as they slowly made their way through a song they felt both to be appropriate, if a bit cliché, note by note and hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here's the final installment! Hopefully you all enjoyed it! Please please please, let me know what you thought here or over at thatsprivatebro.tumblr.com  
> Thanks!!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted over at my shared tumblr: thatsprivatebro So, for more fic, updates and whatnot, that's the place to go!
> 
> Also, I'm pretty desperate for feedback and reviews of any kind, so feel free to do so here or on tumblr :)


End file.
